Ex-Bahraini MP Given 10-Year Sentence

TEHRAN (Tasnim) – The Manama regime handed down a ten-year sentence to Sheikh Hassan Issa, member of a leading opposition group and a former member of the parliament who has been kept in solitary confinement since a year and half ago.

Sheikh Hassan Issa, a senior member of Bahrain’s leading opposition group Al-Wefaq, has been given a 10-year sentence by the Al Khalifa regime, Bahraini sources reported.

The cleric, also a former member of the parliament, was arrested in August 2015 on charges of financing terrorism.

Issa was elected to the parliament in the 2010 polls, but resigned a year later during anti-regime protests.

In July 2016, Manama’s administrative court dissolved al-Wefaq National Islamic Society, almost a month after its activities were suspended.

Al-Wefaq’s secretary general, Sheikh Ali Salman, has been also in prison since December 2014 on charges of attempting to overthrow the regime and collaborating with foreign powers, charges he has denied. A court sentenced him to four years in prison in June 2015.

The spiritual leader of the group, Sheikh Issa Qassim, has also been stripped of his Bahraini citizenship over similar accusations.

Since February 2011, thousands of anti-regime protesters have held numerous demonstrations on an almost daily basis, calling for the Al Khalifa regime to relinquish power.